Forum OpenACS Q&A: ACS-JAVA + PostgreSQL

Is there anyone working on an open source solution for the new
acs-java distrobution?  If not, how difficult would it be to port to
PostgreSQL for this system?  Can you estimate how many man hours am I
looking at for such a port.

As aD was adquired by RedHat, I guess that maybe the will want ACS (in this case the Java version) to run under their redhat database (postgres), so, the big bucks will be in the side of Redhat, but no body know certainly that now.

Is there a special reason for what you want to use Java?

There's no indication whatsoever that RedHat intends to push forward and complete ACS 5.0 Java.  Evidence includes the fact that RedHat has stated their intention to lay off everyone but a handful of folks who work with major accounts such as Siemens (continuing work on their internal Sharenet site, which is ACS Tcl, not Java, based) and the German telephone company.

Unless things have radically changed in the last few weeks, ACS Java is dead as far as RH/aD is concerned.

It's possible that the developers who've been laid off or others might put together an OpenACS-like project to finish it, but I haven't heard  of any such plans.

On the other hand, OpenACS 4.5 Tcl is alive and well and has an active and thriving user and development community.

If you like Java, ACS Java might be a choice though the new platform was never completed AFAIK.  I'd personally recommend seeking a more mainstream Java-based solution if language choice is what's driving your decision.  Forget the ACS and jump into the Java world up to your eyeballs.

On the other hand, if you're attracted to ACS toolkit concepts and language isn't your primary motivation, then there's really no doubt that the OpenACS community is pretty much "it" regarding the ACS these days.

I think what Don's getting at is that actions speak louder than
words. Let's say you were buying out WordPerfect, and
continuing development on it. Would you buy the company, and
lay off all the developers? That's rather silly, because you're
getting rid of the very people who know the intricacies of the
code.

I think one thing to look for when you get involved in an open-
source software project is the strength of vitality of the
community behind it. OpenACS does really well in that regard,
and that's one of my main reasons for being involved in it. It's
one of the strongest internet-based groups I've seen.

We have finished the 5.0 release of ACS Java and will be releasing it shortly. It is taking a bit longer because we are all new to Red Hat and there are logistical issues we have to work through (e.g., where to put the software on Red Hat, etc.).

I posted a little while ago about APLAWS, the Accessible and Personalised Local Authority Web Sites project in the UK.

I saw a demo of this at RH/aD offices in London a couple of weeks ago. It does look very slick. A lot of work has gone into the CMS and user interface.

Acording to the products page this will be released sometime later this month.

Although they have said that it will be open sourced, they have made no indication what kind of licence it will be available under. I doubt that it will be too restrictive though, given the UK govt footed the bill via the pathfinder scheme.

APLAWS was designed primarily for use by local authorities, but the data model seems advanced enough to allow use in any CMS/KMS situation. Details are still a bit sketchy, but watch this space.

When I was at their offices, the guys at aD also said that the next stage of the project would be to port it to postgreSQL sometime later this year.

Releasing APLAWS will be great, sure, but is it the full ACSJ 5.0 toolkit or just customizations on top of CMS and user management and similar core stuff?

That's just a small fraction of the toolkit functionality ... most folks asking whether or not ACSJ 5.0 will be finished are interested in the whole enchilada, not just the CMS package (which is a very important package, of course!)

The first announcement I saw of this also included information about Siemen's ShareNet application.  Because it was coupled with information about ACSJ a reader not familiar with ShareNet would undoubtably assume it had been moved to ACSJ rather than remaining as an ACS Tcl-based site.

In fact it made *me* wonder if it might be true, so I asked around (earlier this week) and was told, no, Siemen's ShareNet is still ACS Tcl.

As far as being diplomatic or not ... I'm just reporting what I've been told, and pointed out that I've not been following things for some time.  Things may've changed.  My information may be obsolete and inaccurate.  Maybe the APLAWS folks are so enthusiastic about ACSJ 5.0 that they've convinced RedHat that finishing it up (the whole toolkit not just CMS and related slices) is a good thing to do.

If so, that would be great.  The more open source toolkits the merrier.  In fact if APLAWS is released under the GPL we may well want to take a close look at the CMS UI, because Ars Digita worked hard to revamp it after getting so many negative comments about the CMS UI in ACS 4 Tcl and I'm sure we could pick up some very good ideas from their effort.

I've not been posting the names of who have told me what because, while no one has asked me not to use their names, no one has told me it is OK to use there names.

According to the APLAWS site its all due for release on the 20th April. I hope they dont make it CD-Rom only, that would be quite tedious.

redhat has released acs-java 5.0 and it shows it will continue developing the software. and the license is changed to a standard general public license without requirements of stating the product is built on Arsdigita.

So, is there anyone interested in porting acs-java to other dbms?

Hi Ming,

I am using CCM for one of my projects.  I am working with Red Hat folks... I am also asking this question about a postgres port since I know other people are interested too.

5.1 is running although its internal.  Postgres is being done but a slow pace.  They say it might be in Sept.

My posts above may have changed a bit already but most of them are still true.  What changed is after looking at mmbase (great platform too), cofax (good concept and it works, but very developer unfriendly) and opencms (very cms specific).  I think CCM is a good OSS platform for both CMS and as a platform.

I am not saying CCM is better than OpenACS all I am saying is that CCM is not as bad as most people have thought of.  I think CCM will have its uses.  I still like OpenACS but I don't have that too much negative perspective on CCM as I used to.

Is the 4.5 cms still active? Will etp be *the* cms for 4.5?

4.5 CMS has a ton of useful code in it coupled with incomplete integration into the [Open]ACS framework and a UI that turns everyone off. By "incomplete integration" I mean it there are a lot of rough corners in the integration (the CMS started life as an independent application and aD tried to integrate it later). Things like its own login mechanism that only works with your "screen name" which isn't required of you at the OpenACS registration end of things, the fact that the CMS code thinks it owns everything in the Content Repository. Means you can't effectively multimount it among other things, and it exposes everything from bookmarks to file storage through its UI, which is confusing.

ETP is better integrated and I think (hope?) that ETP2 will try to use more of the existing CMS code (much which is excellent) rather than roll its own.

I do think we need a more complete CMS solution than the ETP style, though ETP is a great way to put up a lot of templated information in a hurry.

Unknown to most people, I think, is that the CMS UI actually allows you to define custom content types and tie form widgets to them, allows you to attach arbitrary templates to content types or indidivual content items, etc etc. To be honest I think the CMS lets you do everything ETP does (and I know in many ways it does a lot more) ... it's just that ETP has a very straightforward and simple UI.

When 4.6 is on a roll and people are ready to talk about 4.7, we should get a subgroup underway to study CMS issues. Something you ask , "what are the most important features a CMS must provide?", would be a good planning point. Along with study of the CCM since it's now under a standard RH open source license, and maybe one or two more of the other OSS solutions Jun mentions. Not for the internals (we're in pretty good shape in that regard) but for UI, for notions of what gets exposed to various content providers, etc.

Anyway it looks like interest in CMS issues is growing again and a subgroup to explore them would be good. In a way ETP2 folk are focused on this, but they're focused more on one particular solution rather than starting from first principles, i.e. "what should a CMS look like to editors, writers etc?"